Wednesday, 25 January 2017

The Great Cider Adventure

Cider making! Yay! This has turned into such a fun little project that I've decided to blog about it. Here's hoping that it will help other cider newbies avoid making the same mistakes that I have already made, and will inevitably still make, as the adventure goes on. Lets go back to late September... apple picking time.

Marcus' Dad has a great little bit of land on which five old apples trees grow. I'm talking really old, at least 60-70 years old. They are so old no one even knows what kind some of them are. Despite their age, every year they produce a shwackload (highly technical term for a lot) of apples. We eat some of them but the vast majority are usually sent to a local farm for juicing. The jugs of fresh juice are frozen and apple juice is enjoyed throughout the year. It was a great crop again this year and the family banded together and picked the apples in one afternoon.

Now as delicious (not to mention organic) as this juice is, apple juice of any
kind doesn't really fit into my paleo/primal mindset and to me, it isn't good enough
to be a cheat item. However, apple cider, now you're talking! Not the sickly sweet stuff in a can though; give me something crisp and dry, sparkling and refreshing on a summer day while sitting on the deck in the afternoon sun - I'll use that for a cheat anytime.

So
when we drove up to the juicing place, truck loaded with bins of apples,
only to find that he wasn't doing any more juicing for the
season, it seemed fate was telling me I had to try making apple cider.

We
have a wedding coming up and this seemed like the perfect opportunity
for me to learn something new (I love having a project or three on the go), and potentially have something delicious in time
for the wedding.

We have a few really good cideries in the area. My favourite is Sea Cider and their diversity in flavours is inspirational. If I can make anything close to what they make I'll be very excited. I decided to just go with the straightforward cider brewing recipe for this first batch. If that goes well then down the road I'll try experimenting with different flavours and techniques.

The picture below shows about 2/3 of the apples we picked. These are Golden Delicious apples and were destined for straight juice. I've tasted cider from Golden Delicious and its pretty unimpressive. Tastes like a whole lot of alcoholic nothing. But...we also picked 6 more bins from the trees in the back field and these are the ones that I hoarded for cider juice. Guesses are that they are Winesaps or Cox Pippins. Whatever they are, they have a whole lot more tartness and complex flavour than the Golden Delicious. I'm really hoping that their fuller body will translate into some delicious cider.

So now we've got the apples but how to get the juice out of them - all 15 totes full! Next up, how to juice hundreds of apples at home...

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About Us

Teresa and Marcus are an ordinary couple just like you. We work hard and we play hard, and we really like our down time. We like cool gadgets and toys, and we especially like things that add that little bit of luxury to what might otherwise be an ordinary day. We have concerns about the environment, and we want to make and leave the world a better place for our kids and pets. We want to share with you some of our favourite things that make our lives easier or more pleasurable. When we come across something we think we would want for ourselves, we do a ton of research to make sure it lives up to its promise. We read reviews, not from just one site, but from everywhere across the net. Once we have a good handle on how the product performs we put together a review website that reflects the current state of the product. We’ll let you know if we don’t think its worth your money and which ones are the bomb! We'll even let you know the best place to buy it. (Hint: its often Amazon).
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